Dear Daughter,
In precisely ten days, you will be in my arms. I know this because we have chosen to schedule your birth. It’s the first of a long list of choices I will make on your behalf – cloth versus disposable, breast versus formula, public versus parochial versus private, to work or stay home. And that’s not even counting the dozens of everyday choices, about your clothing and your bedtime and whether you can watch one more episode of Blue’s Clues.
In some ways, it feels incredibly unfair that I’m taking away the one bit of control you have early days and reducing it to an appointment.
Don’t get me wrong. We didn’t make the decision lightly. Your brother was born via emergency c-section, for reasons I barely remember. Apparently, sometimes labor goes well and sometimes it doesn’t. In our case, everything that could go wrong did, and so after countless hours and multiple interventions, my doctor fashioned an escape hatch and retrieved him.
Your father describes the wait while until I was rolled into surgery as the most terrifying moments of his life. For me, I was bathed in exhaustion – I don’t remember having any thoughts. Maybe it didn’t cross my mind that your brother would be anything but healthy. I’m usually given to grim imaginings, so this was no small mercy.
Before we tried to conceive you, I sought out a doctor willing to attempt a VBAC – a vaginal birth after caesarean – and assumed that was the path we’d take. But as I learned more about my choices, I vacillated. There is a chance of rupture, so there’s no such thing as laboring at home, or laboring without monitoring. It’s too risky for both you and me – or too risky, at any rate, for me to consider. I also tested positive for Group B Strep – a trifling thing if caught before labor, easily treated with antibiotics, but again, requiring me to hustle myself to the maternity ward at the first sign of a contraction.
And while there aren’t great stats on how many attempted VBACs end in repeat c-sections, it’s pretty clear that it does happen. That was my worst case scenario – going into surgery after hours of fruitless labor, again.
Your father had Very Definite Opinions, too. We have no family in the area. If I went into labor in the middle of the night, he could find himself rushing me to the hospital, pulled between finding last minute care for your brother and being by my side. Our neighbors would happily keep Kyd, but I can see that scrambling at 3 a.m. would not be anyone’s first choice. And on the chance that no one was home exactly when we needed them – quite possible, given that I wouldn’t have the luxury of waiting to go to the hospital – your father worried that I’d give birth by myself. Or worse, face complications or need to make decisions while he was still juggling caring for a toddler.
Easiest, then, if we somehow arranged for you to arrive while we have Grandma on hand.
We also know that odds are against us choosing to have a third child – meaning that concerns about repeat caesareans are not a major consideration.
So here we are, my dear daughter, for a combination of practical reasons and risk avoidance, we’ve decided to schedule a c-section. We’re waiting until the very end of my 38th week, nearly my 39th, in order to give you all the time possible to grow.
You will be here on October 2, sometime shortly after 8 a.m. Your grandmother will take your big brother to school. Your father will be with us. And some point after you arrive, he’ll come back and fetch Grandma – you’re going to be named after her, you know. And then later in the day, he’ll come and get Kyd, too.
That’s the plan.
Of course, now that I’ve told you, I suppose you might have ideas of your own. And all of those confusing, scary rushed and complicated issues could still come up.
Maybe this would be a good time to look at my “Pack for the Hospital” list and consider our choices if you decide to crash the party early.
But after agonizing over all of this, I rather hope you’ll like my plan.
Love,
Mom
